Books

Oliver Twist sent out shock waves when it appeared in 1838. With a half-starved orphan for a hero, it was Dickens' first attempt to rouse the public conscience over the social evils of the day. The adventures of the innocent Oliver - from workhouse to London's underworld, and how he was rescued - is one of Dickens' most popular stories.

Longman's new Cultural Editions Series, Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, edited by Jeff Nunokawa, includes Books 1-3 of Hard Times and contextual materials on the age of Dickens.

The story of David Copperfield (1850) began as a memoir of Dickens' boyhood experiences in a blacking factory and grew into one of his most popular novels, echoing aspects of the author's own life and providing a wealth of famous characters. Creepy Uriah Heep and the cruel Murdstones are here, with faithful Peggoty and David's formidable Aunt Betsey Trotwood; not forgetting the ever-optimistic Mr Micawber, who is a portrait of Dickens' own improvident father. This edition contains the original illustrations by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne).

"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives. Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations. Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to say: "He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions."

One of the most famous and celebrated Victorian coming-of-age novels, David Copperfield charts the adventures and vicissitudes of its eponymous hero's life, from the misery of his childhood after his mother's marriage to the tyrannical Mr Murdstone, through to his first steps as a writer and his search for love and happiness. Along the way he encounters a vast array of gloriously vivid characters – many of whom number among the most memorable in literature – such as the eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood, the eloquent debtor Wilkins Micawber and the obsequious villain Uriah Heep.

Replete with comedy and tragedy in equal measure, and cited by Dickens as “his favourite child"", this partially autobiographical work provides tantalizing glimpses into Dickens's own childhood and remains one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language.

Scrooge’s heart is colder than snow, he’s richer than half the banks in England and meaner than, well, everyone. But when three seriously spooky ghosts turn up to take him on an adventure through time, he soon learns that being cold isn’t cool. Can he change his ways before it’s too late?

Through the lives of its unforgettable and iconic characters – such as Magwitch, Miss Havisham and Estella – Great Expectations charts the course of an England undergoing rapid social and economic change, and tells a tale that is among the foremost classics of the English language.

Representing a departure from the social satire of most of his other novels and deemed by Dickens himself to be “the best story I have written”, A Tale of Two Cities is a powerful historical novel about the repercussions of epochal events on the personal lives of people on both sides of the Channel